Constant
by professor lazyass
Summary: He was the canvas, fate was the paintbrush, and Sion was the paint. Together, Nezumi reasons, they made a masterpiece.


It's silent; deadly silent, despite the correctional faculty falling apart only a little while away. Nezumi's breath seems so quiet and so loud at the same time, and it feels physically impossible to look away from the hump under the dark cloth next to him. Nezumi's eyes occasionaly drift down to Sion's chest, breath hitched as he waits for that rise and fall that will never come.

He grits his teeth, moving the smallest bit closer, and curls up into a ball, shaking, his hands formed into fists as his eyes clench shut.

He discarded the useless things called feelings a long time ago. They burned along with the flames of his home; they burned along with the flames of his family, friends, and innocence. Feelings hold you back—sadness lags you, happiness distracts you, lets your guard down, and anger only gets you in trouble. You have to feel neutrally. You can either enable yourself to feel everything, or nothing at all.

Nezumi's nails dig into the dirtied floor as he remembers that night in the hallway, when Sion asked why everything had to be black and white, and he distantly misses the formerly-naïve man's stupidity. Black and white means something consistent, something you are sure of, something that will follow you and never leave. Black and white means simplicity; it cancels out not knowing if you're going to live to see tomorrow, or if you'll ever see a comrade again. Black and white is being realistic, being sharp and being smart, because once you are stuck in the grey area—or worse, if you get yourself submerged into the _colors_—there is no going back. No second chances.

But with Sion came the grey area, and Nezumi often found himself slipping slowly, despite his resistance. He saw the two ends of the spectrum meet and smear together before his very eyes. With Sion came feelings, those damned things. With Sion came recklessness. With Sion came stupidity. With Sion came _color_.

Nezumi reckons it happened that fateful night four years ago. Color started seeping into the world, as if someone knocked over an ink bottle and his life was some parchment. The blotches spread and soaked through, until everything was bright and saturated and veiled with a false consistency.

Sion grew to be something that was always there. His simultaneously caring and determined nature was something that Nezumi grew to look forward to. It was an out of body experience, as if he were watching himself and Sion, their two separate personalities, volley against each other, back and forth.

He was the canvas, fate was the paintbrush, and Sion was the paint. Together, Nezumi reasons, they made a masterpiece.

But now, the soiled parchment has been scrapped, switched out for a clean piece; a blank slate; a fresh start. The color has been rung out of the rat's life like a rag, liquid dripping down and seeping into the ground, never to return. The feelings aren't there anymore—the caring, and recklessness—Nezumi doesn't feel a thing, not even sadness.

There's nothing.

Nothing at all.

The pure, intact, _nothingness_ of it all eats away at Nezumi's stomach. It burns his body and forces his mind and senses in mush. It rubs salt into his fresh wounds, and it shuts off his slowly dying heart with a click of a switch.

Nezumi finds himself coming to terms with the fact that he stopped living for revenge, and started living for the snow haired man.

Sion.

Sion.

But the man is gone, and with the man were the colors, with the man was the grey area; but black and white is now separated yet again, retracting back to their own ends. The color has left and has been replaced with monochrome. The nothing is back again.

And there's nothing to live for.

There aren't the colors to look forward to, there isn't the head reeling event of separate personas fighting against each other and butting heads. There's no one to teach to dance, no one to sing for, no more goodnight kisses.

There's nothing.

So Nezumi curls himself up, and waits to die as the world deteriorates around him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I have so many feelings for the anime of No. 6 _**jesus christ**__. _The ending sucked so much, but the rest of the finale was perfect by far. I wish the series itself wasn't so short, but I'm planning out a sequel to write (ohoho) anyways, so whatever.

Anyhow, Nezumi throughout the last episode was so heart wrenching. He was obviously in love, which I will always believe, but call it a _close friendship _if you wish, so I wanted to write this real quick in honor of him and in honor of the anime.

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